Hyderabad: Honda Digital Innovation India (HDII) and Hyderabad-based startup ecosystem T-Hub have launched Honda Innovation Challenge 2.0, expanding their collaboration into a year-long programme aimed at developing digital mobility and customer experience solutions with Indian startups.
The programme will feature three innovation challenges over the next year, with total funding of up to ₹4.8 crore. Four startups will be selected under each challenge, with each eligible to receive up to ₹40 lakh to develop a proof-of-concept, or PoC, project alongside Honda teams.
Applications are now open to startups across India working on digital mobility and customer experience solutions.
The funding available under the new programme represents a substantial increase from Honda Innovation Challenge 1.0, where selected startups could receive up to ₹10 lakh. Under the second edition, the maximum support per startup has increased fourfold.
Selected companies will participate in a 12-week development sprint, working directly with Honda’s engineering and business teams on solutions intended for real-world mobility and customer experience applications.
Startups will also receive access to Honda’s operational insights, testing environments and deployment support, while T-Hub will provide mentorship, networking opportunities and other resources.
The objective is to move promising ideas beyond the familiar startup vocabulary of presentations and prototypes and towards something considerably harder: actual deployment. Successful PoCs may progress to pilot programmes and could eventually be integrated with Honda’s products or services.
The programme will also organise industry mixers bringing together startups, Honda teams, customers, small and medium enterprises, venture capital firms and other industry stakeholders. According to the organisers, these interactions are intended to bring practical perspectives into the development process and help shape solutions around real-world mobility requirements.
Sharing the vision for Honda Challenge 2.0, Toshiyuki Yanagisawa, CEO, Honda Digital Innovation India said, “Honda Digital Innovation brings together two important elements: the transformation of people’s lives through digital technology, and the value that we want the Honda brand to create. Our mission is to explore and deliver new forms of value that can make people’s lives better. And Honda Innovation Challenge is the platform where we bring together people who share that ambition – people who have new ideas, new technologies, and the passion to create a better future for customers.”
The initiative reflects a broader trend in the automotive industry, where manufacturers are increasingly collaborating with technology startups rather than attempting to develop every digital capability internally.
Commenting on the partnership, Kavikrut, CEO, T-Hub, said: “Industries are solving increasingly complex problems, but building every solution in-house can take significant time and resources. Startups bring speed, agility and specialised capabilities to address these challenges. At T-Hub, we bring our industry partners and founders together to co-build solutions around real business needs and move them towards deployment. With automotive being an early adopter of technology, our partnership with Honda creates an opportunity to build in India and take these solutions to the world.”
Honda and T-Hub had earlier conducted Honda Innovation Challenge 1.0, which selected four startups in May 2026 — Attento Technologies, Xane AI, SenSight Technologies (AutoBeacon) and AppTestify.
Their solutions were validated in collaboration with Honda teams and supported using insights derived from dealership data across India.
The projects focused on driver behaviour, vehicle resale value, customer understanding and customer experience. Those PoCs are currently being evaluated for possible pilot programmes and commercial integration with Honda.
For startups selected in the latest programme, the attraction extends beyond funding. Direct access to an established automotive company’s engineering, business and testing environment can offer an opportunity to determine whether a technology that works neatly in a demonstration can survive the considerably messier conditions of everyday mobility.
Honda Innovation Challenge 2.0 also underlines the growing role of India’s startup ecosystem in automotive software, digital services and customer-facing technology. As vehicles and their surrounding ownership experiences become increasingly software-driven, partnerships between established manufacturers and specialist startups are likely to become a more important route for turning emerging technologies into commercially usable products.
